What's surprising to me is that if you look at Batman Forever, it actually has genuinely dramatic scenes and character development. I wonder who was responsible for that, if Joel Schumacher wanted to make Batman a comedy?

Burton as a producer. The writers said before writing a script they had a meeting with Schumacher and Burton and Burton just said he wants some focus on the duality of the character and pretty much left everything else to them and Schumacher after that